HONESTY “I was reading this article in the internet you know…..” her voice boomed in pitch darkness.  It was almost 11 pm and we both had turned off our reading lamp half hour ago. I was trying to fall asleep looking at the glowing star in our ceiling our son had pasted when she interrupted. “What article?” I thought she was already asleep. “An article about making marriage different, more exciting; spicier” Her spoke slowly, as if she was controlling the words but for some reason the apparent urgency went unhidden. “Didn’t we talk about it a month ago? And went on a vacation at Dells? And we have been doing things different haven’t we? Movie nights every two weeks, visiting nightclubs every month, sushi dates, shopping together?” “Yes but that article mentioned something different” She answered before I could even complete my sentence. “It didn’t say about doing things different, it is about being different” “What does that mean?” I snickered under my breath. “It means that we both have to change our mannerisms, the way we speak, the way we dress, our thought process, our ideas, our actions.” “Whoa, wait a second, and you bought it?” I giggled this time, cursing some good for nothing bored housewife turned psychologist with a lot of free time and lucky enough to put her baloney in some website. “I mean it might be difficult to do so, but it is not impossible, who knows we might like each other better” “What do you mean ‘we’ Shailaja? “ I asked curtly. I was appalled - of course!  Because I did everything to make her happy.  We had been to Hawaii and Dells earlier this year, bought her another coach bag on her birthday, never raised my brows when she shopped at Banana Republic and drained my checking account and never asked why would she order three pairs of shoes from zappos when she already had fifteen. I worked long hours to bring home a modest sum of money so she and little Varun didn’t have anything to worry about. But then again I thought maybe she deserved it all. Despite being a cum laude from Loyola, she chose to be a suburban housewife and drive Mini Cooper all day taking Varun to school and back, along with trips to Costco and Trader’s Joe, making smoothies and lemonades, housekeeping, laundry, preparing meals and washing dishes, the list went on. “I do not know” She sighed. “As much as I want to believe this is a happy marriage, I feel we have overgrown on each other, our jokes are stale, our looks getting old, romance is dead, sex is a routine, what do you call all this?” “But this is how marriage is Shailaja” I sounded annoyed. “We are in mid-thirties and this is exactly what is supposed to happen, but look around, we are doing a lot better than most of the people we know” “If this is marriage, this is not what I signed up for” She quipped. “You can’t be serious” I turned the lamp on and sat on the bed facing her. “After six years, it was about time you realized, what a timing” “Please tell me you do not like someone else” I said after a moment of pause. “Heck no, you know me better, but speaking of an ideal person, at this point of my life, is someone like Ankit, do you know who I am talking about?” I did. He was a stupid, uncouth and loudmouth cretin who took pride in calling himself a male whore. He was my sister in law’s colleague who often visited my in-law’s place in Skokie during parties and other gatherings. “You are f#*king out of your mind, are you on something? That imbecile is barely 25 and he calls himself player, what has got into you?” I found myself yelling. “No I am not, I am just being honest, and I am not hitting on him every time we meet like the way you must be thinking now, but I find him attractive, he is funny, he is refreshing” She was calm. “Just because you are honest doesn’t mean I am supposed to listen to every bullcrap you tell me and condone everything, I am honest too, but that doesn’t warrant anyone’s aggravation” She smiled and our eyes met for a long time. So long, it made me nervous. “And are you honest? Are you really? Don’t you have anyone you admire?” She kept smiling. Of course I was honest. I mean who would ever discover my infidelity? It was a secret, a serious pact between me and Shannon. We had been seeing each other furtively for over a year now, so secretly even the fly on the wall wouldn’t have had second guesses. We worked together, as a team, for long hours and sometimes went on dinner after work. I must have kissed her twice in Chicago in the dark parking lot after work and slept maybe three times when we were travelling together to New Jersey and Germany. If someone knew we were seeing each other it must have been my car, her car, those beds in the hotels we stayed, the paintings in the wall and our alter egos if we had any.  Shannon and her fiance’ Rick visited us often, at Varun’s birthday parties or NFL Sundays where I had backyard barbecues. And we, as a family reciprocated similarly. And I made sure each time neither Shannon nor I got drunk and blurted out something that could have put both of us in uncomfortable situation. We both called each other often, to talk about work in our work cells and if cupid struck hard I sometimes wrote to her romantically in her email account she created for me from the email account only I knew existed. We played it safe; very safe. Shannon was a five foot six pretty Brunette from Southern Michigan who graduated from University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana with honors. She was a Chemical Engineer and had been a nerd throughout her life wearing hoodies, sweatpants, sneakers and pair of glasses. She often used to mention that she wore frat T-shirts with faded jeans every time she went to nightclub because she didn’t have money to shop for clothes or time for make-up. But a job in Chicago four years ago changed her life. A modest seventy thousand dollars for a single white female gave her enough money to go to a hair and tanning salon frequently, visit that expensive yoga place in downtown, purchase her clothes from Bloomingdales and eat organic food. That is when she realized how beautiful she was, and what she was worth, but there was a caveat, she had a long time boyfriend in Rick who was going to propose to her sooner or later and it would be wrong to refuse. That is where I fitted in. I was married, earned more, was more attractive than a geek in Rick and I could keep a secret. “I do not call it cheating” Shannon once mentioned as we lied down in the bed in this hotel in New Jersey. “Tell me, how can you always eat burgers or Pasta all your life? Don’t you crave for Pizza?” “People are not food Shannon?” I had replied. “Agreed, but isn’t hunger the same?” “Well if we change people in our lives like the way we choose different types of food, everyone is a whore.” I raised my brows. “Who says we aren’t? Just because people do not sleep with every other person they find do not make them ethical, don’t you think we all rape men and women in our thoughts? Doesn’t Rick ogle at hot women? Doesn’t your wife wish she could sleep with other men?” I shook my head and started at the ceiling. Shailaja would never do that. She was a devoted mother and an excellent woman who’d never think of such things. My heart sank at that thought; I shouldn’t have cheated on her. She loved Varun to death, and she loved me. But now as I was looking at her calm face and was assimilating what she had just told me about Ankit, I perhaps was totally wrong. “You know, I have applied to DePaul for Grad school, I want to go back and I was thinking maybe we need to take a time off sometime and evaluate our priorities.” Shailaja suddenly interrupted my thoughts. “What do you mean?” I growled. “I am taking Varun with me and I will also take the car if you don’t mind” She replied indifferently and got up from the bed carrying her pillow. For the first time in over a year I realized how beautiful she was, the sheer pink t-shirt gloved her braless breasts with perfection, and her milky long legs glowed from a ray of light seeping through the curtains.“ “What are you doing Shailaja?”, I threw the blanket on the floor and followed her, she was headed to the door, perhaps to sleep with little Varun. “Stop” She turned around and said with authority. “I already told you we both are leading a very unexciting life and I want to find some excitement, I want to see what other men have in store for me I don’t want to be an ordinary housewife forever” “Wow, that escalated pretty soon?” I hissed as she walked away. “But guess what? You are NOT dumping me, and stop thinking I am gullible and ordinary, because you have no idea what I’d been doing.” “I have been sleeping with Shannon!” I said with a skewed smile. And I paused, and then she paused, and we lost track of time, every second seemed like a year. She then slowly turned around to look at me, and I saw that her eyes were watered. As she walked towards  me slowly, the tears had started flowing. She came closer and put her palm on my cheek as I was looking at her tear drop that had just hit the ground. Then our eyes met as she smiled. And then she choked … ……“I know!” Last edited: 12-Sep-13 09:35 AM